Love again
by ShadowDianne
Summary: Regina is a grieving widow with a child. Luckily, she has a next door neighbor who's more than willing to help with Henry throughout the process. Emma can get him to smile despite everything. Along the way, Regina realizes Emma is helping her move on with her life despite the grief. Asked by anon via tumblr


Love again

When it had first happened Regina had been too tired to even say anything to the blonde neighbor that had moved into the next door several weeks prior. The blonde, beautiful looking but with guarded eyes, had merely been someone she had sometimes grunted at, too angry at everything, at the world, to even say anything else. A part of her, the one who had been raised by her ever proper mother, had screamed inside of her for it, whispering the insidious things she sometimes still thought about in the middle of a far too big, too cold bed.

She wouldn't know that the name of the blonde was actually Emma or the reason of her own guarded eyes until very much later. That very first time, however, had occurred on day Regina had go to pick him up from school; the kid looking stubbornly at his feet while exiting the elevator, hands hanging limply at his sides as the weight of his backpack seemed to drag him down. The blonde, the blonde who always had a smile and a quiet look for Regina, in her eyes twinkling something the brunette didn't know what it was, had stopped in front of the two of them; hand resting on the elevator's doors as they both walked past her and with just a wink had made Henry smile -as feeble as it was- for a second before the slight curved line had disappeared again, replaced by the troubled eyes Regina could also look on herself staring back at her on the mirror every single day, had been finding on her ever since…

Daniel. The name still made her flesh burn around the place she had worn his ring until just four months ago, now completely unable to look at it without gritting her teeth and wanting to scream at the stars he had always been so fond of. That, however, hadn't mattered, not in the moment when Regina had looked at Henry's half-attempt of a smile and perhaps because of her tiredness, of her sadness, the knowledge that at the other side of the door she was so close to there was nothing but memories that still hovered around every objects, every corner, as laughter danced, still audible between the cracks of the furniture, she had called the blonde while offering her right hand, doing her best impersonation of the politician she didn't feel anymore as she told her who she was.

The blonde had looked at her hand with just enough curiosity and cockiness for Regina to feel somewhat intrigued as she informed her of who they were, her names, her surnames, the sting on her last name almost seeming to pass far too quickly for her liking as she did so. Emma had nodded and had looked at Henry, crouching to his level and offering him her hand, chuckling when the boy had answered the gesture, eyes as stubborn and jade hued looking than the ones of the still stranger where.

That had been the first time Emma and Regina had first met for more than just the few seconds a neighbor needed to clash with another as they both tried to reach their homes. That had also been the first time Regina had been left behind, wondering what on earth the blonde had meant when, instead of answering her gesture, had done her best to reply to Henry's silence.

However, it hadn't been the last time and a few weeks after that the blonde, winking and looking at Henry as she asked him about a series Regina couldn't remember the kid watching anymore as every memory seemed hazy even when she tried her best not to, before walking away the elevator, the shadow of a badge what had given Regina enough for a part of her, the one who always worried, to relax.

Days, weeks passed and every time the blonde met with either Regina or Henry she would smile, looking at them fully instead the sideway glances they got from the other neighbors, the ones who had met Daniel, who had known her before. Emma, instead of them would say something that would make Henry either smile, smirk or even giggle, sadness somewhat dulled for a moment, long enough for him to be the child Regina remembered him being, in another kind of life.

But, even though Regina could remember every single detail the moment Emma Swan had first looked at them with something she would later on learn to read as care, as apprehension, as the fear of someone who was also running away from truths as equally complicated to accept than hers, she couldn't remember the first time those small moments had turned into small chats. Ones Regina soon found herself wanting, desiring to have even if it only was for her to look through the gashes Daniel had left, his memory, his words, still hurting, still burning, still scorching the skin around her finger, the one who had been bare ever since he had finally closed his eyes, his face almost unrecognizable, as the last words he had uttered started their chant inside Regina's head, a place they had never left ever since.

"Love again."

She couldn't remember the moment albeit on her mind, every time she tried to picture it, it had been sunny outside and definetely warmer than the first time they had truly interacted. She couldn't remember as well the moment she had opened up enough to offer the blonde a cup of coffee under the premises of knowing each other better considering how they saw each other almost every day, the blonde managing to keep Henry smiling for a few minutes every single morning with a few well-placed words. That had been the moment she had first heard Emma's name from the blonde's own lips and the first moment she had repeated it before enunciating it slowly, noticing the way those green eyes seemed to change for a moment before quickly dissolving into the carefully constructed gaze Regina was already so accustomed to. It had required even longer after that for Regina to finally explain the absent photos, the way Henry sometimes got silent, the way she sometimes clutched the pendant she wore around her neck, ring always there, warm against her skin. It had gotten even longer for Regina to accept out loud that she, as much as she had loved Daniel, had still felt betrayed by his departure. By his death.

"We had so many ideas, for us, for Henry." She had said once, after taking a sip of her coffee. "And then he was… gone." The brand she used was the best but Emma's was definetely stronger and the blonde always remained tight-lipped about the way.

"I'm a police officer." She had said while settling the cups. "I'm only capable of doing this kind of coffee."

Emma had opened up as well, explaining just enough, words, glimpses into much more complicated stories Regina understood how not to push.

And so, little by little, she started noticing that Henry's smile became something normal after she followed Emma's comment of perhaps the boy needing some external help. An idea that had crossed Regina's mind but one she had battled against it, afraid of branding Henry, of making him see grief as something he needed to fear. The boy had answered wonderfully to the treatment though and she could still remember the way Emma's own laugh had echoed the afternoon he had made her known on the blonde's door and leaving a note behind when they had realized that the woman was still at work telling her to call him ASAP just because how excited he had been of finally… "Talking. I… Archie told me that I need to write, I think I will try that, you always are telling mum that I'm a good storyteller, right?"

Emma had smiled so proudly at him that Regina's own heart had ached and so that night she had discovered herself slipping into a dream that didn't involve Daniel, not at first, and when she had awoken she had realized that she wasn't crying, not like she had been for the past few months.

She still had needed a lot of first steps, a lot of quiet moments of realization, a lot of hours talking to Kathryn once she found herself strong enough to call her old friend, the blonde's voice concerned but happy of hearing again from the brunette after Regina had shut her out after Daniel's funeral. She still had needed a lot of time to realize that she, too, needed help and she had needed even more to look at Emma, truly look at her and get to know why sometimes Emma seemed about to say things she, at the end, didn't. She had needed a lot of time but then, one day, one day she could remember as clear as Emma's eyes were green, she had looked at the ring around her neck and it hadn't hurt, not as painfully as it had once, not as excruciatingly as it had done.

"I will always love you." She had said once to the already unmoving Daniel, tears running down her cheeks, completely unable to do anything by cry.

She had known that day that the statement still held; She would always love him, no matter what but she, as well, also wanted to feel something more, something else.

That night she had asked Emma in a date, all rehearsed words and curtesy until Emma had engulfed her in a hug in the middle of the street as she whispered to her that, yes, she very much wanted a date.

She had needed even more to finally kiss the blonde, to finally hear all the story she hadn't been privy off until then. The story of a girl called Lily, misplaced trust and the fear of being rejected after a whole life of being so. She, however, hadn't needed as much to smile as Henry had finally learnt about them, giggling as he pointed as the story he had, apparently, been writing about; the story of a heroine and a queen, of a knight in shining armor, one that, in the real life, was a blonde cop that, once upon a time, had smiled to a sulking child in an elevator just because and a Queen who would always have a magical ring around her neck but, as the weight around her heart, the one that had once tear her apart in two, didn't quite hurt as much as it had done. And that was more than enough.

A/N Comments are very appreciated! And if you want to ask me any prompts I'm shadowdianne both in tumblr and in twitter!


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